Spotify now lets artists list and sell merchandise - and it won't take fees or commission

Spotify is tackling the world of e-commerce by letting artists sell their own merchandise to followers within the music-streaming service.

As a way to provide additional revenue opportunities to artists, Spotify has partnered with a company called Topspin to let artists list merchandise such as T-shirts, vinyl and posters.

Spotify, which has more than 24 million users, said it had tested the new merchandise feature on a number of artists in recent months and that the response had been "fantastic".

To get started listing merchandise, create a Topspin ArtistLink account. You will need to verify your relationship to the artist either by connecting one of the artist’s social media accounts or by emailing Topspin.

Once you have been verified, create a listing by adding an image, title, description and URL to the item of merchandise in your store. Each listing must be approved and should show up on Spotify within 28 hours. But you can list only three items of merchandise at a time.

"There are zero fees or commissions from Spotify or Topspin and you don’t need to change how you sell merchandise at all," Spotify explained in a blog post. "ArtistLink links to your existing merchandise anywhere on the web and displays it on Spotify’s artist pages."

Artists from all over the world can list merchandise. That said, Spotify's merchandise feature is limited to buyers in English-speaking countries, including the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.

"We plan to roll our additional language support in the future," Spotify said.